Diplomat's Son
by Canadino
Summary: He was the diplomat's son, it was '81. Jack/Simon


**Disclaimer: The only thing I own is the story idea and only some of the witty remarks. I own so little; so please don't steal.**

Background music: -

[=]

The window rattled, irritatedly as if it were disgruntled itself, before it began sliding up slowly, millimeters at a time. The moon cast soft white shadows on everything in the bedroom. "Simon," whispered a hoarse voice in the darkness, before the window finally creaked open wide enough for the boy to heave himself through, head and shoulders first, before rolling through and landing with an ungraceful crash on the floor under the window. Jack Merridew checked his bones and determined himself as a single entity still.

He surveyed the room, his eyes already adjusted to the dark. He'd been skulking around outside long enough during the night to attain perfect night vision. The bed looked just slept in, the comforter pulled apart at an almost artistic angle. The entire room looked like a scene on a card, captured in mid-life. Jack didn't have to call twice; there was no one in the room. Frowning to himself, he checked the closet and under the desk without bothering to touch a switch, but there was only one soul in the room. He had been summoned to Simon's house under the promise that the diplomat and his wife were out for the night, not to return until morning and left their little diplomat's son home alone. His guard was off for the night.

The bedroom door was slightly ajar, and Jack opened it to peer down the dark hallway. It was hardly late enough to sneak around, still nine-fifteen at night and the lights on the street inside the houses were still bright and twinkling and the technicolor televisions were still flaring and blinking comfortably. The lights in the house were all out, though, and Jack had come up through the gate to pitch black windows and only the front door light to guide him. He padded down the hallway in his worn basketball sneakers, quiet against the carpet below his soles.

He'd really only been in the house once, a couple Christmases before, when the diplomat's family held the Christmas party for the neighborhood and everyone filed in through the door with open mouths and wide eyes at the splendor of a diplomat. It was a neighborhood tradition for the choir boys to sing at the Christmas parties, some old tradition started by someone now long dead, and back when Jack still considered himself part of the boys choir, he mustered up all the authority of a fourteen year old and ordered the rest of the choir to stop staring and prepare themselves for ten minutes of singing before they could gape all they pleased.

He peeked into a few rooms, looking into the diplomat's room, peering into a spare bedroom. He poked his nose into a bathroom and thumbed the light on, casting yellow light and blinding him momentarily, but he caught the sight of a pair of black shoes lying haphazardly in the shower. Simon was home, and he was somewhere.

Jack resisted sliding down the banister, the polished, sturdy-looking wood beckoning, but he walked down the stairs like a dignified person, glancing carefully in order not to miss a telltale light, but it appeared that it was dark and empty downstairs as well.

Simon had always been an odd one, standing off by himself and watching the others with an expression of highest apathy. He had been introduced as the diplomat's son, a boy of the highest breeding of the school for highbred boys, and treated as delicate goods. Jack didn't remember much of those times anymore, his mind contemplating the unstructured ruminations of teenage-hood, but he did have a vivid memory of Simon standing in his socks at his doorway and beckoning him down to whisper a delicious secret. Jack didn't remember the secret anymore, but he did remember the way Simon brushed his lips against his cheek and that was all that really mattered, really.

A thorough check of the ground floor revealed no new presences, and Jack found no need to venture into the basement. He found the kitchen again and switched on the lights and claimed it as his home base. He shrugged his jacket off and let his keys scamper across the counter to rest somewhere behind some bowls. If Simon was going to be cryptic and hide from him, he could wait it out himself. The quietness of the house made it almost taboo of him to call out. Jack pulled himself up onto the kitchen counter and sat next to the sink. There, he contemplated the diplomat and his wife coming home early to see a high school delinquent awaiting them on their kitchen counter. Surely in their good breeding they would demand, but politely, that he leave, or she would ask why he had broken into their house. Their son would never associate himself with such material. The moon was reflecting off the lake in the back of the house.

When Jack was young, he read a story about a prince who wanted to touch the moon. He gathered everything in the town and built a tower reaching all the way to the moon. When he climbed it, it was wobbly and extremely precarious but he did it anyway, and in the end, the tower collapsed before he could set a finger on the moon. He fell into a nearby lake and discovered he was sitting right in the reflection of the very object he'd wanted to touch and there was the happy ending.

Jack thought vaguely it was a stupid thing to do, trudging into the diplomat's lake. He blinked and suddenly he was knee deep in the cold water, his jeans rolled up. He couldn't quite remember how he'd gotten outside, or what possessed him to do such a thing. Simon was afraid of the water, he knew. The boy couldn't swim, what with his frail health and penchant for faints. There was no way he would be in the water. Still, Jack looked out and saw the reflection of the moon and thought about how ridiculous it was.

A wind rippled the water and blew in his face, and just as he looked away to avoid the gust buffeting him right in the face, he spotted it, the car parked right before the ground sloped down to the lake, all black with diplomatic plates.

[=]

("What are you doing out here?" Jack asked, climbing into the car, his calves still wet. Simon was sitting in the driver's seat, wearing a small pair of gym shorts and a white shirt, laughing. "You can't just take the car out like that. I was looking for you. You gave me a scare."

"Drive this back to the garage," Simon said. "My dad will kill me if he knew I took it out without his permission."

Jack drove them back into the garage, situated carefully against the house. Then he takes Simon to the backseat and warms himself back up from the tryst in the lake.)


End file.
